This week on Keep Going, I talked with Chantelle Shakila Tiagi, the founder of Tiagi, a creative production and artist consultancy that works across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle. What struck me was not the scale of the work, which spans London, Los Angeles, and Mumbai, but how unplanned the entire thing was.

Tiagi did not start as a master plan. It started as momentum.

Chantelle came up through fashion and production, worked with a boutique agency, then went freelance because she needed a break. That break turned into opportunity. One shoot led to another. Porter Magazine. Big talent. Serious campaigns. At a certain point, the work was too big to pretend it was just freelancing. She formed a company not to build an empire but to protect herself. The structure followed the work, not the other way around.

That pattern comes up again and again on this show. People imagine founders sitting down with a five year plan, a pitch deck, and a vision board. In reality, most businesses worth talking about start because someone is good at something, other people notice, and demand quietly grows until it cannot be ignored anymore.

Tiagi’s model is simple in theory and hard in practice. Brands come with a brief. Sometimes it is detailed. Sometimes it is a single image. Tiagi builds the team. Photographers. Directors of photography. Set designers. Creative directors. Producers. Fifty moving parts, all of which have to work together. Chantelle described producers as conductors. The orchestra only sounds good if the right people are playing the right instruments.

This matters more now, not less.

We talked about the DIY turn in creative work. Ring lights. Instagram reels. Cheap tools. Anyone can make something now. The fear is that expertise no longer matters. Chantelle’s take was calm and practical. People always want the real thing. They want best in class. You can cut corners, but it shows. Quality reveals itself over time, especially when brands are putting serious money behind campaigns.

The same logic applies to AI. We talked about virtual models, synthetic environments, and brands experimenting with fully generated shoots. Her view was not defensive. AI exists. Ignoring it is how you get left behind. Tiagi will use it where it makes sense, especially in post production. If AI can create a background instead of flying a crew to a beach, that can be useful. But the idea that all shoots will become synthetic misses the point. Production is human. It is logistical. It is relational. It is physical. AI cannot run an event, manage a crew, or solve problems on set when things go wrong.

The more interesting part of the conversation came when we talked about growth.

Tiagi looks big from the outside. Big brands. Big names. Multiple offices. Internally, it is small. Chantelle kept it that way on purpose. Contractors expand and contract based on projects. The core team stays tight. COVID reinforced this lesson. Many companies realized they were carrying internal weight they did not need. Tiagi leaned into being nimble. Boutique turned out to be an advantage.

This is where the title of the show really fits. Keep Going does not mean keep scaling. It means keep moving forward without losing your footing.

Chantelle was honest about the tradeoffs. She rarely produces shoots herself anymore. Her days are contracts, meetings, sales, and management. This is a shock for a lot of founders, especially in creative fields. You start because you love the work. If things go well, you end up doing less of that work. Her advice was blunt. You have to learn to love the rest of it, managing people, building careers, making decisions, and taking responsibility. Otherwise, you will resent the thing you built.

What stood out most was her emphasis on doing good. Tiagi makes a point of supporting underdogs and bringing new talent into rooms with established names. That is not marketing copy. It is how they build teams. Access is power in creative industries. If you have it, you have an obligation to use it carefully.

We also talked about being an operator. Chantelle now has to handle contracts, billing and legal details: the unglamorous parts. Chantelle likes that work. Producers have to. It is a thankless role. You only hear from people when something breaks. But when a massive project comes together, when the shoot lands, when the team pulls it off, the satisfaction is real. The admin is the price of that feeling.

There was no grand lesson at the end of this conversation. No blueprint. No hustle sermon. Just a clear pattern.

Do the work well. Let momentum build. Do not grow faster than you understand. Stay small longer than feels comfortable. Accept that success will pull you away from the thing you started with. Decide whether you are okay with that before it happens.